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Remains Found 29 Years Later Lead To Murder Charges

Posted: 12:16 pm PDT March 25, 2008Updated: 6:34 pm PDT March 25, 2008

A brother and sister were charged with first-degree murder Tuesday for the slaying of an Alaska man nearly 30 years ago, reported KIRO 7 Eyewitness News.

Renee Curtiss and her older brother Nicholas Notaro are accused of shooting Joseph Tarricone then dismembering and burying his body.

According to detectives, the slaying was committed in late September or early October of 1978.

Investigators said Tarricone had been dating Curtiss, then 25, while the two lived in Alaska. Tarricone showered Curtiss with gifts asked her to marry him after she moved south to the Summit area, police said.

[PDF] Probable Cause Documents In 30-Year-Old Slaying Case

Police said that Curtiss told her brother she wanted Tarricone gone and asked Notaro for his help.

Notaro allegedly lured Tarricone to the Summit house and shot him in the back of the head, killing him, investigators said.

Probable cause documents said Curtiss then purchased a new chainsaw so she and Notaro could dismember Tarricone’s body and bury it.

Police said Tarrocone’s remains were placed in a plastic bag and buried six feet under the porch of a farmhouse where Tarricone had lived with Curtiss. The dismembered body remained there for the next 29 years, documents said.

The chopped-up remains of Tarricone were found at a strip mall under construction in Summit last June by a construction worker. The house where Tarricone and Curtiss had lived together once stood where the mall's parking lot was being built.

Both defendants pleaded not guilty.

Notaro was ordered held on $2 million bail. Curtiss, who owns Henry’s Bail Bonds, was ordered held on $500,000 bail. Judge Susan Serko ordered Curtiss’ bail not be provided by that company to avoid a conflict of interest.

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